


The World Upon a Loom

by StormAnon



Series: A Storm Ashore [6]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-24
Updated: 2011-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormAnon/pseuds/StormAnon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke must free herself and her friends from the Fade, Broken Circle-style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hawke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the kmeme prompt:
> 
>  _Remember the Fade in DA:O? Remember how all of the companions had their own little scene where demons attempted to trick them into complacency? I thought it was such a cool window into each companion's psyche. I'd love to see the DA:II companions trapped in the Fade as well. Does Fenris believe he's a slave again? Does Merril see Mahariel? Is Hawke trapped in Lothering?_

"You know, Hawke, for a Fereldan, you throw a pretty tasty dinner party," said Varric, raising a sauce-slathered leg of pheasant into the air in informal salute to the hostess.

"Fereldans can't throw dinner parties?" rebuked Aveline, though with no real ire in her voice.

"Not ones where the food is any good," said Anders, reaching across the table for a salt shaker. "I bet it's Orana's doing. Say what you will about Tevinter, they make a mean spring pie."

"That's not made of the blood and tears of slaves, too, is it?" Hawke asked Fenris with a quirked lip.

"No, that's just the wine."

"Speaking of wine, Hawke darling, would you be a dear and go fetch another bottle from the cellar?"

(Hawke? Did her mother just call her Hawke?)

Everyone called her Hawke except her father. She called herself Hawke in her own head. What else would her mother call her?

"Adrian dear? Did you hear me? I said pour another glass of wine for me, darling."

Hawke blinked, then smiled and held out the bottle. "House full of servants and we still pour our own wine, what's the point of even being an Amell?"

Aveline laughed (but Aveline never laughs at her jokes), her cheeks flushed with drink (but Aveline never gets drunk). "Would you like someone to wipe your own ass for you while you're at it?"

"And pre-chew my food, and possibly open and close my eyes for me when I need to blink," agreed Hawke merrily.

"Oh, I wouldn't want that," said Merrill. "What if they poked you in the eye by mistake? You could lose an eye! That would hurt terribly!"

(No, not the eye, the shooting pain was in her temple, the faint drip of blood ran in front of her ear.)

Pain? What pain? She shook her head. Why couldn't she remember...?

"You're clearly thinking too hard, love," said Isabela, kneeling between her legs, pushing her backward onto the bed. (Bed? That wasn't right, hadn't she just been -- wait, " _love_ "?) "Though I admit, that cute little furrow between your brows does give me _ideas_ \--"

Hawke caught Isabela's hand before it could slip under her shirt. "What's going on, Bela? Is... wasn't Mother just here?"

Isabela laughed, merry, delighted, just a little perverse. "Why Hawke, thinking of your mother at a time like this! I knew you were kinky but I had no idea!" She leaned in close, breath ghosting across Hawke's neck. "I think Sebastian is taking care of her. We could ask them to join us..."

Sebastian. It hit her like a brick between the eyes. " _Sebastian has spoken of your deft handling of the demon that threatened the Harrimans, and those that tormented the elf boy Feynriel. And I fear the templars will have no more success with their next sortie than they have with the past three. Will you take on the burden of defeating this foe, child?_ "

With a furious snarl, she shoved the encroaching creature bodily away from her. It caught itself in a spiderlike crouch and smirked up at her.

"Hawke, love! Playing rough?"

But Hawke could hear it now, the faint hissing sibilance under that familiar voice; could see the strange superimposition of catlike purple eyes beneath Isabela's gold, like something flickering at the corner of her vision.

"Give it up, demon," she growled, and suddenly she was on her feet, clad in dark iron, the thick gold-bound hilt of a greatsword comfortingly snug in her fist. "I know where I am, and what you are, and I'm done with this trap."

For a moment, the demon regarded her, almost contemplatively, and then it rose up, the illusion of Isabela's form falling away, the voluptuous lilac nudity and cold-flickering fire of a desire demon in its natural shape taking its place.

"Very well," it purred, calm and conciliatory. "I can see you are a mighty champion, a strong will not to be trifled with. Perhaps, then, you would consider... a bargain?"

Hawke tightened her grip on the phantom sword.

"A bargain for what?"

The demon grinned, and leaned a little closer. The already-dim remnants of the bedroom around them shredded and tumbled away like wisps of colored cloth, the odd yellowish dreamscape of the Fade momentarily bold around them before it warped again and resolved into a woody forest. Golden light glinted through the canopy and the rich smell of autumn filled the air; the faint mingling scent of pine and peat marked this as the border between the Brecilian and the Korcari.

"Stay with me, here," purred the demon. "Let me indulge you. I can give you everything you desire. The comfort of the home you still long for, and the freedom to wander it at will." The landscape shifted again, now a bubbling stony brook through the rocky lowlands below Redcliffe, and again, now the emerald grasslands of Adderfield under a sapphire sky, and again, now the white beaches of Gwaren.

There was a smell in the air, that perfect cool dry breath of late autumn, the first caress of a soon-to-be-biting winter, so unlike the mild wet of Kirkwall's rainy months.

Hawke wrapped her best arrogant sneer across her face. "That's it? And what price are you expecting me to pay for empty landscapes?"

"None at all, if a return to Ferelden is not to your... _tastes_ ," the demon whispered, and familiar brown arms wrapped around Hawke from behind. The edges of fingerless gloves brushed her jaw as gentle nails whispered across her cheek.

"I can offer so much more, love," said the Not-Isabela, hot and throaty in her ear.

Hawke just raised an eyebrow. "We did this one already, remember?"

"But you haven't considered it, not really," said the demon reasonably, _helpfully_ , laying a gentle hand on Hawke's sternum as the not-Isabela's lips brushed the back of her ear. "She'll never love you, you know. She'll never be faithful. Never prize you above all others. Never be trustworthy. It's not in her. She's lying to you even now.... out _there_." The demon waved a hand, lightly, dismissively, like the world beyond the Fade was a mere inconvenience. "But in _here_...."

"Won't you stay with me, love?" purred the Not-Isabela, throaty, thick with desire, and just a tiny, fleeting, unfamiliar note of _need_ , of genuine pleading.

"... in here, she can feel for you as you do for her."

The hilt was loose and insubstantial in Hawke's hand.

"And what..." She gripped the metal against her palm until her skin burned from the friction, willing it to solidity. "What would that cost me?"

"Nothing difficult for one so deserving," the demon said. "Just the sword in your hand, and you can stay here forever. With her."

"The... sword?" Hawke looked down at the black and steel and golden blade, light and perfectly balanced, hanging alongside the demon's hip, its tip bobbing just above the dirt, edges so keen they were transparent as glass. A beautiful weapon.

Callused, knowing fingers slipped along her belt.

"It's not even real."

"Exactly," purred the demon. "So what have you to lose by giving it up? And think how much you have to gain."

Isabela -- the _Not-Isabela_ \-- stroked a hand up the linen cloth of her shirt -- where had her armor gone?

She looked down at the blade. It seemed to glow back at her. "I don't know. It's an awfully _shiny_ sword. I've never even held a sword this nice before."

"I can sweeten the pot," said the demon with a grin.

Hawke turned without thinking, _sensed_ them there before they spoke -- he, face open and smiling, still smooth and untouched by the Taint, she, hale and gentle, no pale shadows of imprisonment --

"Sister?"

\-- and she would never know which had spoken, her body already spinning, her blade already buried in the demon's stomach, the dragon song boiling in her blood, the pale phantoms of temptation withering to rot and dissolving all around them.

"You would have had me," gasped Hawke, panting, kicking the demon off her blade with a heavy armored foot. "You stupid monster, you would have had me. If you'd had the sense to leave it at Bela, you would have _won_."

Broken and baffled, it looked up at her, cat eyes clouding over. "But... it's what you wanted... most...?"

"The Maker Himself cannot give me what I want most," snarled Hawke. "They were empty mockery, and now you die for it." Her blade fell hard and final against a lilac neck, and the demon's body convulsed once more, then went still.

Hawke collapsed onto her knees, the gold hilt falling from her nerveless fingers, and blinked against the sudden blurriness of the twisted yellow landscape around her as the demon's corpse, too, withered into nothingness before her.

She knelt, and choked, and trembled, and breathed the empty Fade.

And then she shook herself, and hefted her sword, and rolled to her feet. Eight people had walked into that sewer to cut down a demon. Eight people were going to have to wake up to finish the job. Feet set, eyes on the twisted shadow of the Black City far above, she went looking for a dream.


	2. Aveline

It was hard to tell how long she'd walked, or where. Finding a dreamer in the Fade wasn't exactly like tracking a deer through the Korcari, and she didn't have a plan, really, other than to hope that her uncanny sense of direction in the real world would translate to some kind of useful internal compass here. So Hawke just wandered, heading wherever her boots felt like taking her.

And either the Maker smiled on her, or she'd inherited some tiny sliver of her father's magic after all, because between one step and the next she abruptly found herself surrounded by cozy stone walls.

"Demons and dinner parties," she murmured to herself. "Is there some kind of compulsion about this that the books never mention?"

The room, a fire hall in what looked to be a grand Hightown estate, evoked the barracks at the Viscount's Keep, solid slate and squared corners and heavy oak doors with a roaring fireplace on the longest wall, a shield hanging above it. But there was something much homier about it, even moreso than the vaulting hall at the Amell mansion; a warm glow bounced off the stone and a thick plush carpet sprawled underfoot, and even the very air smelled somehow sweet and welcoming. At the edge of the room, over the bare floor, a sturdy wood table groaned under the weight of roast boar, towers of bread, baskets of corn, and flagons of ale and milk, their cool clay sweating in the pleasant warmth.

Hawke watched curiously as Donnic walked into the room, arms full of salad, and Hawke herself followed him -- a softer, shorter Hawke than the one she saw in mirrors, in rich velvet trousers and a comfortable tailored shirt, no scar on her lip or nick in her ear, hair braided back neatly instead of pulled into its normal loose queue. Donnic looked somewhat softer as well, his muscles less defined, his step a little more careless than his normal alert bearing, as he laughed and wiped his uncallused hands on a flour-covered apron.

Three red-headed children barreled past them to scramble up to the table, stocky and broad-jawed, the boy favoring Donnic with kind eyes and deft fingers, the girls with Aveline's wide smile. Aveline herself, and a young, unworried Leandra with a flush of youth and health about her face, were the last to come to the table.

There was a clamor, a piping of competing voices and mingling conversation, until Leandra's voice rose above the tumult with gentle authority. "Shall we say grace? Perhaps my daughter can lead us in our thanks to Andraste."

Hawke stepped forward, reluctantly, her sword heavy on her shoulder. "Blessed Andraste," she said, talking over the Hawke at the table and bringing the whole party to a screeching halt. "Forgive me for the pain I'm about to cause."

She met her double's eyes and saw a sinister shadow flit behind them.

"Well, not to the demon," she added, a bit cheered by the thought. "No apologies for that."

"Hawke..?" said Aveline, rising, giving her a confused look. The Hawke at the table vanished as soon as Aveline turned. "What...?"

For just a second, the briefest heartbeat, so quick she'd have missed it if she'd blinked, Hawke saw the shield on the wall flicker, from the mantle to Aveline's arm and back again.

"What are you wearing, Hawke? Honestly, I invite you to a nice family dinner, and you have to show up in a bloody tin can."

"I've done my best," sighed Leandra theatrically, "but a mother can't work miracles."

One of the little girls, the oldest, jumped up from her seat and ran over to Hawke, throwing her arms around an armored leg. "Auntie Adrian, Auntie Adrian! Are you going to teach me more swording? Is that why you're dressed that way?"

The dreamworld shifted as she spoke, and now they were in a closed-in inner courtyard; again, it evoked the barracks, straw training dummies and blue slate, and again there was something a bit more homey about it, a tall Ferelden pine dappling the sunlight and leaving soft needles on the flagstones.

"'Swording', really Little Bit? What have I said about spending too much time with Merrill?" grinned Donnic from where he leaned against the door, Aveline's shield propped up next to him on the low stoop.

"Why are you --?" Aveline blinked, looked around in confusion, and then settled. "You know you don't need to do this, Elizabeth," she said sternly, arms crossed, as she regarded Hawke and her small barnacle. "Nothing can ever hurt you here."

"Yes, _she's_ quite safe," agreed Hawke. "I've always found it damnably hard to kill a figment of the imagination after all."

"Hawke. What are you _talking_ about?" demanded Aveline.

"When were the kids born, Aveline?"

"What kind of a question is that? Hawke, why are you --"

"Just..." She put up one hand, interrupting her friend. "Just work with me for a minute here, Aveline. If you've ever trusted me at all, indulge me now. When were the kids born?"

"I..." Aveline furrowed her brow. There was the shield again, strapped to her back.

"Hawke," said Donnic, shifting forward to step into the courtyard. "This strange questioning really is unlike you, my friend. Put that sword away, and come sit down at the table, won't you? Dinner is still waiting."

Hawke ignored him. "How long have you lived here? _Where_ is _here_ to begin with? This isn't the barracks."

"You can't raise a family in the barracks!" laughed Donnic.

"You can't afford a place like this on a guard captain's salary."

The shield was solid on Aveline's back, and Donnic was starting to look angry. "You forget yourself, Hawke. You are a guest in my home. I must ask you to put down your sword, or take your leave." He turned a conciliatory look on Aveline. "And you, my love, won't you hang that shield up and come sit down for dinner? Your family is here, safe and happy. You don't need to worry about them. You don't need to worry about anyone."

They were inside again, in the fire hall, and Aveline looked around warily, confusion on her features and unease in her posture.

"Yes, everyone's safe," mocked Hawke. "Like Wesley? Like Bethany?"

"Hawke!" Aveline cried, hurt and angry. "How dare you! I have done -- I did --"

Donnic was next to her, soothing, "You did everything you could, love. And you won't ever have to again, so put up that shield. Everyone's safe here."

"You earn your coin in blood, and so do I," said Hawke. "We're never safe. We never will be."

"I retired," said Donnic, indignant. "If you cared about Aveline at all, you would too."

Hawke gave a helpless snort of laughter. "Really? _Really_? You're playing that card? Aveline, would you actually love a Donnic who wasn't driven to protect the innocent? Can you actually believe that _I_ would ever even _consider_ laying down my sword? Neither of us will ever be safe, Aveline. Never. And you know it. Ask yourself why anyone would try to convince you we were."

"We're safe here," said Donnic, voice soft and placating, eyes livid and red as they glared at Hawke. "There's no danger now. I can't say what tomorrow will bring, but clearly today there's no need for swords? Hang that shield back on the mantle, love, and let's all settle down for a nice evening meal."

Hawke's greatsword rang audibly as it sliced through the air and stopped dead just a hair's breadth from Donnic's neck. "Nobody is ever safe, Aveline. If you put your shield up, how will you protect your husband?"

"Hawke, what in Andraste's name are you _doing!?_ " demanded Aveline, shield on her arm, flaring in the suddenly bright light of the fire.

Donnic _hissed_. "She is in my thrall. If I die, she breaks."

"But you'll still be dead," smirked Hawke. "Aveline, the man you love is in danger. Best defend him."

"A-- Aveline," started Donnic, but Aveline shook her head, like a mabari trying to dislodge an insect.

"Donnic -- Hawke -- what are you -- how did we get here? We were... we went to the sewers, we were fighting a demon --"

Hawke slid her blade a little closer to Donnic's throat, drawing a thin line of blood. "We still are."

"... the _Fade_ ," growled Aveline, and the shield burned brilliant and a sword burst to life in her hand and she threw herself forward, bashing Donnic clear over the table with a single blow and then leaping after him to bury her sword cleanly in his chest. He screamed a thin, unearthly howl as his shape dissolved into nothingness, the rest of the room crumbling to dust in his wake.

Aveline stood, shaking. Hawke carefully examined her sword and did not watch her friend's face.

"Hawke, I --"

She stalled out, and Hawke looked up.

Aveline was looking down at the clean, polished metal strapped to her arm, her brows drawn close in puzzlement.

"It's a... metaphor," said Hawke. "Sort of. On this side of the Veil, it's your will against the demon's. But you're a soldier, a swordswoman. To you, fighting back looks like strapping on a shield." She shrugged. "Things are very literal here, and symbols have a lot more meaning than we're used to giving them."

Aveline shuddered. "How do you know these things, Hawke?" She looked over, glaring fiercely. "How do you _do_ this? You don't belong here any more than I do! How do you always _fight_? How do you always win while the rest of us fall?"

Hawke grinned disarmingly against Aveline's anger. "Raised by an apostate, remember? Really, the ins and outs of the Fade make for fascinating dinner conversation."

Aveline just glared.

Hawke ducked her head. "The important thing is that I did, isn't it? That's how this works. As long as one of us is still standing, we all are. Doesn't matter who." She looked up with another smile. "And look, see? You're waking up already. See you on the other side, Aveline."

Aveline said something, made some protest, but her voice was already gone, and her lips turned transparent as they moved silently, her whole body fading and vanishing into nothing like her dream before her.

Hawke sighed, and started walking again.


	3. Merrill

It was the music that caught her first, when she found the next dream. Intricate and joyful, it sang on the air like an emperor's symphony, stopping her short with the sheer joy of listening, and she let it dance along her skin for a moment before opening her eyes and looking around.

She had stepped into a city courtyard that made the brightest paintings of Val Royeaux look like a Lothering back-alley. Everywhere, there was marble; black-veined white paving stones, green turtles on a black fountain, pale columns holding red arches overhead. A wide lawn circled the stones, filled with strong ash and beech, bright paint around their trunks and paper lamps and humming wind chimes and fluttering streamers hanging from their branches. Cloth pavilions stood on tall poles, rich fabrics in every bright color of the rainbow, embroidered with gold and silver and hung with tassels and more clinking chimes.

And everywhere, everywhere, were elves, in shimmering fabric and glinting armor, playing ornate instruments and laughing on the grass and hawking ripe sweet-smelling fruit. Hawke recognized a few faces, here and there, from Merrill's clan; Ilen and Pol and Fenarel, others she'd seen before but couldn't name. Marethari was under a tree in deep conversation with a handsome young elf with an easy smile. Both had clear features, as distinct and solid as Merrill herself, though all the others, and even the scenery, seemed almost to shift with the wind, sharp and brilliant head-on but just a little out of focus as soon as Hawke looked away.

Merrill was standing in the middle of it all, next to the fountain, cheerfully conversing with a demon.

Hawke blinked. It wasn't in any form she recognized straight off -- it was tall and thin and a dark shadow hung around it, its form a warped mockery of man and elf -- but it was definitely a demon, and Merrill was definitely aware of that fact.

"Is it very powerful?" Merrill was asking.

"Oh indeed," came the demon's response, suave and calm, a rich soothing masculine burr. "Many dreamers have tried to defeat it and lost."

"But you know it well? You know its weaknesses."

The demon affected surprise at the question. "Why, I suppose I do. I have been here in its realm for a very long time." It caught sight of Hawke. "But what's this? We have a visitor."

Hawke walked up to it, gripped her sword, and slammed the blade into the side of its head.

It screamed, and Merrill jumped back with a cry. " _Hawke!_ " she protested, but the demon was already turning on them, hands stretching into brutal claws, ichor oozing from the slash to its skull.

"That wasn't very nice at all," it said, and lashed out at Hawke. She ducked back, rolling, and brought her blade up in a slashing block, cutting into the demon's wrist. It screeched again and pulled back, but pressed forward just as quickly, sickly green mist forming around its talons as it drove her back.

"Little help here, Merrill?"

"Ugh," tsked Merrill with such aggrieved, infuriated frustration that Hawke actually almost laughed, despite the whistle of demonic claws past her face. With a twist of her hand, Merrill conjured a ball of purplish light, and hurled it at the demon, searing its shoulder and knocking it off balance. Hawke lunged into the opening and scored a deep strike across its ribs, and then Merrill's magic flared again and a thorny mass of writhing vines lashed up through the paving stones, wrapped themselves around and into the demon's flesh, and in one swift convulsion, tore it apart.

Hawke took a moment to breathe and lean on her sword as she watched the remains of the demon dissipate, noting with idle curiosity that none of the elves around them had even noticed the commotion. When she'd caught her breath, she turned to the glaring elf beside her.

"Do we need to have the talk again?" she asked, eyebrow raised. "Merrill good, demons _bad_."

"I'm not _stupid_ , Hawke," said Merrill curtly. "It's a spirit. It knows this realm. I was trying to _use_ it. You of all people should understand, you did the same thing in the Deep Roads! And in Feynriel's dream!"

"Pup, I string them along until I learn something useful and then stab them when they're not looking. You actually try to make a good bargain. I admit I'm sort of playing with fire but you're basically dumping oil over your head and rolling in hot coals."

"I know what I'm doing!"

"You keep saying that." Shaking her head, Hawke sighed. "Look, we got pulled here by a sloth demon, right? Obviously a powerful one, it probably rules this corner of the Fade. And what does it want? It wants us _here_. Trapped. Sleeping forever, so it can feed off our indolence. Any demon here, it's going to try to serve its own hunger, feed off our desires or our rage or whatever, but above all, it's going to try to _keep us here_ for its master. It was never going to agree to any bargain that let you leave."

"It was a strong spirit, Hawke. Spirits serve each other because they're forced to, not because they want to. It might have challenged the spirit that rules here, if it had a reason. You don't think that would be helpful?"

"And just what would you have had to pay for its temporary allegiance?" Hawke smeared a gloved hand wearily across her face. "Look, whatever. It's dead now, or at least temporarily formless and inconvenienced, and yet we're still stalling here and wasting time playing sloth snack. I'm going to go make sure everybody else gets free --" a flicker of surprised guilt swept across Merrill's face at that -- "and you should _wake up_. We can fight about it later, when we're not all dead or comatose."

"Fine," said Merrill, crossing her arms, but she held off for a moment, her expression softening slightly. "Be careful, Hawke."

"Don't worry," said Hawke grimly, hefting her blade over her shoulder. "I'm not in the mood to indulge any more demons today."

Merrill nodded, and all the color and solidity drained out of her, until translucency turned to transparency turned to total absence. Hawke watched the last stone pillars of Arlathan flicker out, and resumed her wandering.


	4. Varric

The next dream brought with it a moment of strange disorientation, as she found herself walking through the front door of the all-too-familiar Hanged Man. There were differences -- the floor was cleaner, the flickering firelight somehow less grungy, the smell in the air that of rich ale and beef stew rather than piss and vomit -- but it was definitely the Hanged Man, right down to the curious overlapping knot in Varric's favorite table.

Upon which Varric himself was currently seated, hands on his knees as he bent forward to address about a half dozen rapt listeners, regaling them with the tale of the Deepstalker and the Soggy Nug. Hawke walked up and leaned on the wood pillar in the center of the room, at the end of the half-circle formed by his audience.

Varric smiled up at her in welcome, but didn't break the flow of his story, merely finishing "and that's why you'll never see a nug blink," with a wide, satisfied grin and a flourishing bow. The audience broke into applause as he looked over at Hawke. "There you are, Hero! Pull up a seat, I was just about to tell them about your wrestling match with that rock wraith."

"Oh, no, Master Tethras," cried one of the listeners, with a slight Orlesian accent. Upon closer examination, her red hair and open, friendly face looked vaguely familiar to Hawke, but she couldn't place her. "You promised to help me rewrite the Lay of the Warden! I must have your input on the motivations of the Qunari Sten."

Varric smiled genially. "Surely you know him better than I could. After all, you're the one who travelled with him for a year."

"Oh but you have dealt with so many Qunari, for years longer than I! You could help me so much in making sense of his dialog."

"Well, if it's that important to you, of course I'll help, my lady Leliana. I make it a policy never to turn down a beautiful woman."

Hawke crossed one ankle over the other casually, letting her armor clank a little. "You wouldn't rather be out making new stories, Varric? I'm working on one about a sloth demon as we speak. It's sure to set the audiences afire."

" _Sloth_ demon," repeated one of the other listeners disdainfully, a brown-haired man with a distinctly Ferelden look about him. "That sounds more likely to set audiences to sleep. Wouldn't you rather help me with a revision of Hafter's Rime? Your talent for a visceral action scene could provide exactly the punch I need."

"Varric," said Hawke, raising an eyebrow. "Clearwater wrote Hafter's Rime _six Ages ago_. The man is dead. How could he be sitting here asking for your advice?"

Varric furrowed his brow for a moment, but it smoothed quickly. "Come on Hero, is that so unreasonable? How many times have we fought the walking dead? Surely every now and then one of them would come back with the urge to do something productive instead of trying to kill us."

"Yeah, those aren't the dead, Varric. They're _demons, possessing_ the dead's corpses. So what does that tell you about Clearwater here?"

"Hero, what in the Maker's name are you going on about?"

But one of the other writers interrupted before she could reply, with a sycophantic smile and a weaseling plea of "Master Tethras, what about the Aleriad? Surely you won't leave my own great opus devoid of your helpful touch."

"Oh, Jurian," said Varric, face bright with false humility. "I couldn't. It's a classic!"

Only Varric, thought Hawke, would call the first known epic poem in the history of the written word a mere _classic_ with a straight face.

"But your insight is so profound," said _sodding Jurian of Tevinter_.

"He writes _prose_ ," said Hawke. "You want him to rewrite your _poem_?"

Jurian shot her a narrow look, then lifted his chin. "I have often thought that the Aleriad might benefit from freedom from the restriction of meter and rhyme."

Hawke crossed her arms and stared at Jurian. "Laying it on just a little thick, aren't you? Come on, Varric. I know you've got a healthy ego, but even _you_ can't believe Jurian of bloody Tevinter would come back from the dead just so you can do his galleys. If for no other reason than because he was a damn Tevinter of the pre-Imperium era! He'd as soon spit on a dwarf as listen to his stories."

"Ignore your plebeian friend, Master Tethras," soothed Clearwater. "She does not understand the writer's heart. She doesn't know what it means to shape the very world with her words. She has no sense of how we hunger for the understanding and approval of our peers. And what peers have minstrels of our caliber, save each other?"

"Hunger, is it?" repeated Hawke, narrowing her eyes at the poet.

"Aheh. Merely a metaphor, my good woman," Clearwater hedged, but there was an ugly glint in his sideways glance.

"Hero, come on. You're spoiling the mood. Have some ale, it's actually worth drinking today."

"And that doesn't strike you as odd? Varric, when is Corff's ale ever worth drinking? Really, what is this place? Didn't you once tell me the whole point of the Hanged Man was the 'gritty, honest ambiance' of rat feces and vomit?"

"And what sort of a place would that be," said Leliana, "for people like us? A minstrel of Master Tethras' caliber should hold court in only the finest taverns."

"You could, if you wanted to," Hawke agreed, not taking her eyes off Varric. "You could do a lot of things if you wanted to. You've made a penniless refugee into a fearless hero with a nickname and a couple chapters of bullshit. I don't doubt you could rule Kirkwall if you put your mind to it."

"I'm touched by your faith in me, Hero," grinned Hawke.

"You don't want to, though," said Hawke, rolling forward off the pillar and onto her feet. "You rent a room in the most notoriously seedy tavern in Lowtown when you could afford the biggest mansion in the Merchants' Guild. You keep the secret of an abomination and a blood mage when you could win every ear in the Free Marches by bringing them to light. And you have never, _ever_ told the story of Bianca. And you never will. Because as much as you hunger for this --" she waved a hand at the poets and writers, who were watching her with increasingly uneasy and angry expressions -- "there will _always_ be things you value more. This isn't you, Varric. You're not the hero of your own story, not when you're taking it seriously, anyway. So what's going on here? When did you become the protagonist with the golden hall and the attentive flattering minions?"

"You're --" Varric pinched his temples with one broad hand to his forehead. "Aren't you the one who's always telling me I should be? Trying to get me to admit my part in all our crazy adventures?"

"And you're always laughing me off. You never agreed with me before, why now?"

"Because you've been right all along," soothed Jurian. "Because he deserves it. Because he wants it."

"No," said Hawke. "He _hungers_ for it. There's a difference. And a man as good with his words as Varric knows that nuance."

"Hero --" Varric shook his head. "Why do I get the feeling you're trying to tell me something here?"

"Because I have been. Tell me our last story, Varric. Tell me my last adventure. I'll give you a hint. It starts in the chantry. I went there to pray like the good little Andrastean you like to mock me for being. And what did I discover there?"

"I'm bored already," snapped Coldwater. "No one wants stories about religion."

"I thought Varric could tell _any_ story and make it perfect?" jeered Hawke. "Prose or poetry, action or romance, chantry or raider cave? How does the story go, Varric?"

Varric shook his head again. "Elthina asked you to go after a demon. The templars were trying to keep it under wraps and 'handle it internally' but they just kept getting themselves killed. Choirboy put your name in, and since the whole idea was both idealistic and crazy, you jumped at the chance."

Hawke was leaning on her sword now, a practiced stance that looked casual but could explode into hot death at the drop of a hat. "And then?"

"And then... we beat it."

"Did we?"

"Of course you did," said Leliana. "Mighty warriors like you two. It would be barely a footnote in your history. Not like the rock wraith. Tell us more about that, Varric."

"No, Varric. Tell us how we beat the demon in the sewers."

"It..." Varric rubbed at his temples again. "Hero, are you sure --"

"Work with me, Varric. What happened in the sewers?"

"We found the demon, and it... told us all that we should... oh, sodding nugshit," he grumbled, pulling a crossbow off his back that hadn't been there a second before.

Hawke grinned. "Good of you to finally catch up," she said, as the three writers twisted and warped and swirled together into the looming shape of a massive hunger demon, the rest of the crowd withering into a toxic cloud of surrounding dust.

Bianca sang first, a quick three-bolt retort burying gold-feathered missiles dead on the demon's chest. Hawke swept forward in their wake and gouged into its stomach, twisting her blade before she pulled it out and prompting an agonized howl. The demon swung a claw at her but was so clumsy with pain that she didn't even bother to duck, merely swinging her sword around for another deep slice into its flank. A final whirring bolt into its eye finished the job, and it vanished to dust before it finished hitting the ground.

The Hanged Man paled and faded into the familiar sickly dreamscape, and Varric collapsed Bianca onto his back. "How do you keep dragging me into these messes, Hero?"

"You're an incurable masochist, and I'm dangerously charming."

Varric laughed. "That sounds about right. So what now, oh brave rescuer?"

"Give it a minute, you should already be waking up. I'll be along as soon as I can, I've got a few more stragglers to fetch."

"Don't take too long," said Varric, then added, a grinning afterthought, "But do take good notes!"

"Always," laughed Hawke, as Varric faded out.


	5. Anders

Another step, another immeasurable moment of wandering, and Hawke stood in familiar arching gloom. Strange treelike growths of lyrium, blue and red and pulsing, crawled through the walls and along columns, prickling the hairs at the back of her neck. Her father had once told her it grew raw in the Fade, and she wondered how much of this was a memory of the Deep Roads, and how much was real.

"Hawke."

That sonorous, echoing voice did not belong to any of her friends.

Hawke turned a full circuit, seeing nothing in the dark. She moved forward, toward a brighter spot in the shadow, watching indistinct shapes resolve themselves into people and furniture between the warped, vein-covered columns.

There were two men at a table in front of her, one blond, one dark-haired, but before she could get close enough to identify them, two more figures flowed out of the gloom in front of her, halting her progress. One was a dwarf, lithe by dwarf standards, a cheery grin on her face, a naked axe hanging at her belt, though she wore only layers of comfortable brown linen. The other was tall and flint-eyed human who carried a bow over one shoulder, clad in the loose jerkin of a Fereldan noble out on a boar hunt with her dogs. No Fereldan could ever fail to recognize that face, and Hawke's breath caught despite herself.

Anders' dream, then.

And indeed, when she looked closer, both women bore the twin grey griffons on their clothing; the dwarf, on her shoulder, a delicate embroidery on the sleeve there, and the Warden -- the one who would forever be _The_ Warden to all Ferelden -- on her tabard, ringed by the Cousland laurels.

"Anders?" Hawke called, peering past the women toward the table.

They let her pass, Cousland with a dubious, unimpressed survey of her armor and blade, the dwarf with another cheery grin.

"Who's your friend, Anders?" asked the dwarf.

"Never seen her before. But I do hope she's single," the blond at the table leered.

Hawke clenched her jaw to stop it from dropping. The man before her was, indeed, Anders... Anders with a glinting gold ring in his ear and an arrogant smirk, dressed in tasteful but clearly expensive blue and brown silk, with a tailored scarf and silver cuffs and shiny black boots and nary a feather in sight. An orange cat rubbed itself against his feet where they were propped on the low stone table.

"Must you be so uncouth?" asked the angular, dark-haired man beside him. He was clad in black with a bow across his lap, and Hawke didn't recognize him any better up close.

"Must you be so boring?" shot back the not-Anders, rolling his eyes.

Hawke just stared at him.

A shape glided up next to her, clad in heavy plate, eyes flaring blue in a face that seemed to belong to both Anders, and simultaneously some other man, broader in the jaw and cheekbone, bald, with sunken cheeks. There was even a brief flicker here and there of no face at all, just points of cobalt light behind a heavy winged helm.

"This isn't his dream," said Hawke, not turning from the not-Anders, watching the newcomer out of the corner of her eye. "It's yours."

"Yes. That is Anders as he was."

Hawke's sideways glance turned narrow. "As he was?"

"Before I poisoned him."

She turned away from the not-Anders, and looked the man full in the face. His shape seemed to resolve once she did, becoming completely the man-that-wasn't-Anders, the other two images receding to mere hints at the edge of her vision.

Hawke crossed her arms, and said, "Justice."

"That was my function, once," he agreed, "when I was but another denizen of this realm. When I... awoke, when I began to follow her --" he nodded at Cousland, deep in conversation with the dwarf behind them -- "it became my name."

"You were a Warden," Hawke realized, marveling. "He didn't just meet you in Amaranthine. He _served_ with you."

"She and her men were trapped in the Fade by a powerful darkspawn. When I helped them to escape, I was somehow caught up in it, and thrown into your world alongside them. She had proven herself noble, a creature of honor and compassion. And the cause of defeating the darkspawn was just. And..." the withered face smiled in fond remembrance. "I had 'nothing better to do'."

He looked around at the other Wardens. "I did not regret my choice. They were noble comrades. I learned much from all of them."

"And this?" Hawke gestured to the arching dwarven ceilings, the glowing veins in the rock. "The Deep Roads?"

"If you could hear the song of lyrium as I do, you would not need to ask."

Hawke watched the not-Anders pet his cat, and then devolve into affectionate bickering with the man beside him.

"Where is he? The real one."

"It is... difficult to explain. In your world, we share what was once his. It is a confusing place, where many things coexist. In the Fade, we share what was once mine. Here things are what they are. Ideas cannot be split, as they can in the mortal realm."

Hawke narrowed her eyes. "He's not here."

"That is... close enough."

The dwarf and Cousland had found their way to the table, and the dwarf was now playing with the cat while the Cousland spoke to a stiff, glaring Dalish woman.

"Why are _you_ here?" demanded Hawke. "You know these aren't really your friends. You know that's not Anders, and this isn't some idyllic spirit paradise. How can you possibly fall for another demon's tricks?"

"Because here..." Justice's sonorous voice became soft, lost its echo. "Here I am _not_ a demon. It is not the feigned taste of lyrium or the echoes of friendship or the shadows of a happier time that bind me, Hawke. It is the mere fact that such things hold appeal. That I can see their value enough to long for them."

Hawke turned to regard Justice, full-on, meeting that fiery blue gaze with her own.

"What if you stayed? What if you never did wake up?"

Justice looked away, his eyes drifting to the Wardens as they chatted and quarreled. "I do not know. But I suspect that neither would Anders. His body would lie comatose, bereft of spark or life, until it atrophied and decayed. Perhaps then I would be free of the mortal world. Perhaps I would not, and my only paths would be as they are now, to remain in this prison or return to a waking life."

"I was afraid you'd say that," sighed Hawke.

She watched Justice watch his friends for another long moment, and then everything rippled and fell away, gently, like a receding tide, the gloom and the glow of lyrium fading smokelike into brown and yellow and the Black City far above. Only the muted echo of the Wardens remained, transparent shadows, a soundless afterimage of brotherhood under an oversaturated sky.

"Hawke..."

She waited, her imagined armor heavy on her shoulders.

"... thank you for being his friend. He has given up too much for our cause."

Hawke closed her eyes against the laughing Wardens. "So have you," she said, softly.

When she opened them, she stood alone in the empty Fade.


	6. Sebastian

Hawke's feet had not yet failed her, but for a brief, mad moment, when she entered the next dream, she thought she'd somehow woken up; that familiar sweet-rough scent of silverleaf incense was the holiest thing she knew, and the idea that some demon could make a mocking trap of it simply did not _compute_.

But sure enough, this was a phantom chantry she'd stepped into, the arching vestibule around her with its bronze statues of Andraste forming the tapered point of a sword-shaped house of worship. Stained glass windows high above cast dappled patterns of color around her, and there was a sound in the air, just on the edge of hearing; an impression of bells and a glorious choir. Neither was actually there to be heard, exactly, but there was the vague sense that they had been, and had only just stopped a second before.

She walked forward, sword sheathed without thought, her booted footsteps loud and heavy on the thick red carpet. This, it was clear, was a proper chantry, built from cornerstone to keystone to honor the Maker, not some repurposed Tevinter palace like she'd become accustomed to in Kirkwall. To see a demon put such care into such a thing, even down to the dancing dust motes in the rose- and leaf- and sky-colored shafts of light... Despite all her better sense, Hawke couldn't help but keep her steps slow, her shoulders drooped in reverence. She didn't even speak when she finally reached the pews at the apex of the hall, where a richly-robed Grand Cleric -- looking distinctly less harried than the real one ever did -- was leading a small service.

She drew the line at joining them, though. She stood in the aisle, instead, arms crossed, surveying the attending parishioners. Sebastian was easy enough to pick out, on his knees in front of the altar. Many of the others appeared to be Vaels as well, sharing his nose or jaw or piercing eyes, dressed in wealthy and reasonably tasteful Marcher fashion. The rest, Hawke guessed for household servants, at least by dress and posture and the presence of the occasional elf.

The false Elthina smiled benevolently at Hawke where she stood, and launched into a prayer. She did not, Hawke noted, call on Andraste, and thank the Maker for small favors, at least. Hawke could only cope with so much bizzare blasphemy in one day. She strode forward and dropped to her knees beside Sebastian at the altar, iron greaves clanking dully on the carpeted slate.

"Sebastian," she murmured quietly.

His eyes opened in surprise, and he looked over at her, instantly concerned. "Hawke?"

"I hate to interrupt, my friend --"

"Then do not, child," interrupted Elthina, sweet-voiced and gentle. "Dear Sebastian is weary from the endless trials you inflict upon him. Let him rest his soul here for a while and find succor in the Maker. Surely just this once you can inflict your usual mayhem without his aid."

"With respect, Your Grace," said Hawke, watching Sebastian give her a sidelong glance at the irony in her voice, "this is mayhem you yourself instigated. It is for the Chantry, at her behest, that I pursue my current hunt."

"That need not involve Sebastian," said Elthina. "You are a mercenary, but he is a brother of the Chantry. His place is here."

"He is also a prince and a warrior, who has sworn himself to the protection of the people, Your Grace."

"Hawke," objected Sebastian. "You've always counseled me to serve the Maker."

"I've told you to do what feels right, Bastian. To renew your oaths and do the Chantry's work, if you want to, not to kneel passively at the Grand Cleric's feet. How does _sloth_ \--" she slid her eyes over to Elthina, who narrowed hers -- "serve the Maker? Admonitions 4:8, _And be ye not indolent, nor stay your hand from the Maker's cause, for the inaction of the righteous is the fertile soil in which the seed of evil shall flourish_."

Elthina folded her hands into her sleeves. "There are many forms of action in the Maker's name, dear child. Does the Canticle of Inspirations not tell us, _Yea, and even she shall serve, who lifts no blade, but calls others to the Maker's side with song and wisdom_? The taking of life is not the only service to the Maker, nor by any means the greatest," she said with clear distaste.

Hawke rose to her feet. "And that very same verse goes on to say _For each shall serve in the way that is best to her, and offer up her greatest gifts to the Maker's service_. As Andraste wielded her own blade, alongside her song and wisdom. Sebastian is a good man and a fine counselor. He's also the best archer I have ever met, bar none, a fearless warrior who has saved countless lives by the strength in his arms, and whose service as a brother has only ever been improved by his personal experience with both man and demon in the everyday world." She looked over at Sebastian, who'd risen to his own feet. "To _waste_ those gifts, to lay them aside when they could make the difference between a life lost or saved, _that_ would be a failure to serve the Maker."

"And what of Sebastian? What of the peace he's earned? Does he not deserve, after all he's endured, a time to rest?"

"All he's endured? Like what? He has a home and a purpose in the Chantry." She cast a cutting glance out at the congregation, a quiet, mostly inert image now, made vague by the demon's distraction. "His family is all around him. What has he endured?"

Sebastian rubbed a hand over his face, his fine noble clothing seeming for a moment to be the flowing robes of a brother. "My -- family is here...? Why does that seem... Hawke?"

"It's your decision, Bastian. It always has been. What _of_ the peace you've earned? Is it right to rest? Or is it right to _serve_?"

"I --"

"Sebastian, you should not trouble yourself --"

"Sebastian, you should open your eyes."

"Your Grace --" Sebastian stared at her, intent and searching.

Elthina held out a hand placatingly, but there was a touch of inhuman echo in her voice. "You are no uncouth mercenary, Sebastian --"

" _And you are not Elthina_ ," Sebastian growled, light flaring between his hands, his grandfather's bow abruptly in his grasp and pulled back to his shoulder, an arrow of pure golden light nocked to it. Hawke took a step sideways to clear his field as she drew her own blade, and Elthina spun like a black cloud that coalesced into a towering demon of sloth.

Hawke knew from experience the difference between feeding on sloth and indulging in sloth, but she was still startled by the speed with which the demon ducked around her, knocking her to the ground from the side before she could even react. It loomed over her, claws lifted to rend, but three glowing arrows lanced into it, enough force between them to drive even its massive bulk briefly back. Hawke leapt to her feet and brought her blade down hard, the demon managing to turn the blow at the last moment and prevent a true slice, but still taking a stunning slap to the head. The momentary disorientation was enough for two more arrows to find their mark, pinning the trailing shadows around its feet to the carpeted floor, and with it trapped there in place Hawke chanced a full-body swing that neatly severed its neck.

As the demon's corpse faded, the chantry following in its wake, she looked over at Sebastian, and shook her head. "I guess you weren't kidding."

Sebastian, clearly shaken, answered mostly on instinct. "What do you mean?"

Hawke made a sort of sweeping gesture to indicate his attire; not his white archer's plate, but brown and gold Chantry robes with a soft glowing aura around them, like a cloak woven from sunlight. "The light of the Maker. It really is your armor. And your weapon, apparently."

Sebastian looked down at his bow. "I..."

"It's the Fade," offered Hawke tiredly. "Just roll with it."

"I would rather not," said Sebastian with a mild shudder. "I will follow wherever you need me, Hawke, but the Fade -- this is no place for people like us. The _blasphemy_ of that demon..."

"Well, so follow me back out then, Bastian. It's time to wake up."

"Gladly," said Sebastian, with another shudder. "Thank you, my friend. I cannot imagine how I would have escaped this -- unholy nightmare, without you."

"It's what I do," shrugged Hawke, as Sebastian thinned, then flickered out.


	7. Fenris

Hawke's arrival in the next dream was heralded by a wet spatter flaring across her face and pinging off her armor. She blinked against the dark red drop, warm and thick, beading on her eyelash, and raised a gauntlet to wipe the blood from her lips. Almost before she'd finished blinking, there was a flare of blinding blue-white in front of her, accompanied by an inhuman growl and an equally inhuman scream, and the wet crunch of bones breaking and organs tearing under the pressure of clawed gauntlets. Her vision cleared just in time to see Fenris drop the robed woman before him to the red-soaked ground.

Hawke looked around, and found herself at a loss to identify her surroundings. It was a room, certainly, with four walls at a fair distance apart. Beyond that, it was indistinct shadow; the floor could be stone or dirt, the walls brick or wood or the heavy granite of a dungeon, the roof an incomplete suggestion of rafters or a skeleton open on a dark sky. There was light in the dream beyond the glow of Fenris' tattoos, but she could see no source for it. Things were simply visible, if somewhat flat, shape and form delineated by only the faintest suggestion of shadow.

But the bodies... the dozens of corpses, robed and silk-clad, man and woman, young and old, in every mangled and shattered position, strewn everywhere around her feet... those were perfectly rendered. Every broken shard of bone, every bubbling puddle of blood and torn edge of skin, every pale grey empty face, shone out in exquisite, visceral detail.

Fenris looked up, looked around, his eyes sliding past Hawke like she wasn't even there to light upon a new face, a man emerging from the shadows clad in lightweight Tevinter armor. The soldier flung out a bolt of lighting from one hand, but Fenris' tattoos flared against the power and he just charged right through it, slamming into his opponent and wrestling him to the ground. They began a quick, desperate grapple, but the inevitable outcome was fairly obvious.

Hawke tried counting corpses for a moment and quickly gave up. She leaned forward instead, and tried a casual, "Been here long, Fenris?"

"He can't hear you," said a voice smugly, and Hawke snapped her eyes over to its source. It was a young woman, human, with short-cropped hair and a proud Tevinter nose, clad in green mottled armor designed to break the lines of her body and better hide her in a leafy forest. A short blade hung at her hip, and there was a simple white disc on a chain around her neck -- the mark of a Fog Warrior, Fenris had told her, one late drunken night when he'd showed her the one he'd been gifted.

"Ah," said Hawke. "There you are. I didn't think you'd be playing the role of victim. Let me guess: rage demon."

"Are you so sure?" the demon smirked. "Perhaps you do not know your friend as well as you think. Perhaps this is his deepest desire, a foul hidden secret he dares not share with his companions."

Hawke stared at it for a moment, then broke into a peal of helpless laughter, wrapping one arm around her stomach and digging the point of her sword into the ground with the other to lean against it.

"Really?" she managed, once she could breathe again. "Really, that's your plan here? Some kind of sad stab at 'divide and conquer'? Nobody spends five minutes with Fenris without noticing he'd like to disembowel every mage in the Imperium. Generally if we're still hanging around with him four years later it means we're over it."

The demon narrowed its eyes at her warily. "If you fight me --"

"Yes, yes, I know, Fenris is under your thrall, I have to get him to see through you himself or his mind will break with the illusion. This isn't exactly my very first Fade adventure, you know."

The demon folded its arms and stuck its chin up, completely put out. Hawke could swear it was pouting.

She looked over at Fenris, who had engaged himself in the gory vivisection of an old grey-haired woman, a broken whip still gripped tightly in one hand. "Seriously, though, how is this entertaining? I mean, rage, yeah, it feeds you, I get it, but... it's a bit one-note, you know? You've got desire demons out there building whole fascinating layered worlds to ensnare their victims with, pride demons weaving cages out of their targets' own minds, and you're.... what, dicing bodies in an empty room you can't even be bothered to properly picture? There's so much more to mortals than this. Finding Fenris and not seeing beyond your little gorefest here, it's... it's like finding Yusaris and using it as a letter opener."

The demon stared at her in baffled incredulity.

"Forget it," sighed Hawke. "Maker, I'm bringing fewer friends next time. Fenris!"

"I... told you, before," said the demon, still sounding a little baffled, but its smugness coming back in force now that it was on more familiar ground. "He will never hear you. He hears nothing now but the pounding of his blood in his ears, the whine of the lyrium under his skin that he at once both loathes and treasures. There is nothing in his mind but the hunt. I have built it in him, banked and tended it like an infant flame, and now it is a bonfire that consumes all his thoughts."

Hawke gripped her sword, and wondered if a rage demon was clever enough to lie this convincingly. "Fenris, come on. Dial it back for a second."

The demon laughed, a grating, crackling sound like the distorted popping of wooden logs breaking into coals, and Hawke watched her friend murder.

Fenris liked dogs, Hawke knew. She didn't think most of their motley crew was aware of that, and he'd probably deny it if confronted, but he did. Not just her own clever, friendly hound, who never licked and rarely drooled, but all dogs. Even Hightown had its strays, and he'd crouch patiently on the street with the last bite of his lunch and wait for one to eat out of his hand, as he scratched it gently behind the ears. He was a good dancer, too; better even than court-trained Sebastian, graceful and light on his feet with a perfect ear for a changing tempo. And his humor was as wicked as it was subtle. Once they'd graduated from children's books, he'd surprised her by showing up with a copy of Isabela's latest friend fiction and insisting she teach him from it, a gorgeously smug grin on his face. They'd spent a lot of those five weeks trying fruitlessly to embarrass each other.

And here he was, shackled by a demon to the worst of himself, the _least_ of himself. The thing less _Fenris_ in him than any other, the one thing he most loathed, the thing that had driven him bleeding from her door after fighting Hadriana, the first time he'd ever turned his back on her, and he was a slave to it, consumed by it, made to be nothing else.

"Does it make you angry, noble Hawke, to see your friend treated so?" laughed the demon.

Hawke closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and sheathed her sword on her back. "You've set up a nice trap here, demon, but I'm afraid there's a variable you haven't accounted for."

"And what would that be?"

"I'm kind of stupid."

And with that, Hawke stepped between Fenris and his current victim, grabbed his arm while it still clutched his enemy's heart, and yanked it into her own chest.

Hawke _bellowed_.

She knew it would hurt. She had been ready for it to hurt. She had seen slavers and magisters scream and writhe against the pain and guessed at its ferocity. She had suffered pain enough of her own, taken raider arrows to the shoulder and felt demon fire score her back and, on one unfortunately memorable occasion, suffered a poisoned dagger to the gut that ended in a dangerous and screamingly tender infection. She could do pain.

But this was -- this was indescribable, unendurable. His fingers were cold, so _cold_ , like an ice spell driving in piercing shards through her lungs, every muscle clenching and spasming against an impossible intrusion, her heart making a brutal skip, it was _inside her chest_ , oh sweet Andraste --

" _Hawke!?_ " cried Fenris in abrupt dismay, wild green eyes snapping suddenly present and wide with horror, and she collapsed onto the floor with a flat dull thud, chest heaving desperately, the very air painting burning shards in her wounded lungs. Fenris went dim, lyrium extinguished like an eye blinking shut, and stumbled a half-step back, the rage demon letting out a wild cry of frustration behind him.

"The Fade, Fenris, we're in the --" Hawke gasped for breath. "Kill it, kill the dem--"

She broke off into a wracking coughing fit, eyes squeezing shut, her world narrowing to the single point of fire in her lungs and her helpless struggle for air. It wasn't real, none of this was real, a distant part of her knew that and knew she could heal herself as easily as knowing herself never wounded, but she couldn't think, couldn't concentrate, couldn't stop believing the pain.

And then there were fingers on hers, wrapping her hand around cool hard metal -- her sword, her dream-blade, and there were words in her ear, urgent, angry, pleading all at once, a gentle warm pressure on her arm. "Fight, Hawke, damn you. _Fight_. Don't _do_ this to me."

It would kill him. If her stupid stunt left her blood on his hands, it would kill him. The damned Fog Warriors all over again, and for what? What a sodding imbecile she was, and it wouldn't even be _real_ , none of this was _real_ \--

\-- none of this was real. She propped her weight on her sword, pulled herself to her feet, shook herself, and breathed cool nonexistent air into healthy nonexistent lungs. "Sorry. I'm okay. Thank you. Sorry."

The Fade was yellow and brown and hypersaturated around them, empty of life, the Black City hanging over their heads, and Fenris was hunched over, refusing to meet her eyes.

"Fenris, I --"

She dropped her own gaze.

"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I wish I'd gotten here sooner."

It was barely audible. "I wonder that wish you'd gotten here at all."

She glared at him. "Alright, cut that shit out, Broody, you're starting to live up to your name. I'm fine. I'm more worried about you."

"I failed you. Again."

She grabbed his chin and dragged his gaze up to her face. "Fenris, do you think I go around sticking just anyone's hand through my chest? You're so sure that your hate runs so deep, that your rage defines you so thoroughly, but in the absolute deepest thrall of it, with an actual _spirit of rage_ egging you on with all its evil might, your loyalty, your _friendship_ , was still stronger. If you had _failed_ me, I would be dead." She raised a pointed eyebrow. "Do I look dead to you?"

He gave her a long, hesitant look, then finally cocked his head. "... you look like something your dog vomited onto the carpet."

She laughed helplessly and leaned on her sword, watching his own hapless half-grin grow in response. "You sure know how to flatter a girl, Fenris. Now wake your ass up, we've got a demon to kill."

"When you put it so kindly, how can I refu..." he replied, already fading out, and she watched his wry smile and shame-bowed shoulders fade from bold curves to faint lines to wispy nothing.

Pushing herself back to her feet, Hawke laid her blade back over her shoulder and went in search of one last dreamer.


	8. Isabela

She knew she'd found Isabela by the smell. Tar and spring storms and the salt air over the sea filled her nostrils, and then she was stepping onto a wooden deck, slender and well-swabbed, not a rope uncoiled or a nail out of place. There was a spar next to her head and she grabbed it on instinct, steadying herself against the slow roll of the waves beneath.

The sun was bright and warm, but neither as blinding nor as scorching as it should reasonably be on the open ocean in spring. It was just the right temperature for wandering about shirtless, in fact, and what crew she saw about were all doing so. She spotted an elvhen sailor who wasn't quite Fenris, lanky and olive-skinned with black tattoos and a shock of white hair, and another who could almost have been Sebastian, but broader in the shoulder and boldly scarred. The lithe female elf manning the wheel resembled Katriela holding court at the Rose, were only her skin a bit paler and her hair a shade less brown.

Isabela was perched high in the rigging, like she'd gotten almost to the crow's nest and decided she was more comfortable wrapped around the ropes. Hawke sheathed her sword and stepped forward, felt the harsh rasp of braided hemp against her bare toes as she began to climb; her armor had vanished again, and left her clad in loose linen pants and a sleeveless black blouse. The breeze was cool on her shoulders and she wondered faintly how true this dream was, if this was really what sailing would feel like.

She settled herself against the ropes next to Isabela. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but she had to admit the view was nice. The sea stretched out in every direction, fathomless blue below them and shimmering silver at the boundless horizon, wispy white clouds breaking the powder blue bowl of the sky. Isabela smiled out at it. She was dressed oddly, at least for her, almost as simply as Hawke herself; no boots, no corset, no elaborate gold jewelry, just a white blouse and dark shorts and a sapphire on a chain around her neck.

"Everyone on your crew looks like someone you'd want to sleep with."

Isabela didn't look at her, but her smile got wider. "Well, naturally, sweet thing. That's the very best kind of crew to have."

"I thought you didn't have sex with your subordinates?"

"Of course I don't. But if you're going to be stuck with the same people for months on end they might as well be nice to look at." She leaned back a little smugly.

Hawke shook her head. "I suppose I can't argue with that."

"What did I tell you? Captain Isabela knows what she's doing, don't you worry."

Hawke studied the horizon. "Do you know how we got here?"

That earned her actual eye contact, albeit the puzzled kind. "What kind of a question is that?" She narrowed her eyes. "Have you been ignoring your water ration? Just because you're too dark to sunburn doesn't mean you're immune to the heat, you know. I'd rather you not get dizzy and fall out of the rigging on me because you have the sense of self-preservation of a small rock."

"You're too sweet, Bela," said Hawke. "I'm fine, trust me."

"Hmn," said Isabela skeptically, but she looked back out at the horizon again, her smile returning.

Hawke leaned back into the ropes. She was inside a dream, it shouldn't be possible to be inside a _dream_ and still be this _tired_.

"Bela," she finally said. "Why didn't you leave Kirkwall?"

"I did, sweet thing. Look around. You're _sure_ you've had enough to drink? You stop being thirsty once it gets bad, you know."

"I meant before this. Four years, Bela. Through the Deep Roads, and that thing with the Antivans, and that thing with the elves. You could have gotten a ship, if you wanted. Maybe not a big one, not like this, but something. Something to get you away. Get you back onto the sea."

"The relic is in Kirkwall, somewhere."

"You always said that nothing could catch you on the water. If you had a ship, Castillon couldn't touch you. Isn't that why you're here now, instead of still back there, searching?"

Isabela shifted uncomfortably. "You don't understand, Hawke. Castillon... you don't just 'get away' from him. It doesn't work that way."

"So why now? Why are we out here? What changed?"

Isabela didn't quite seem to have heard her. "You're not afraid of him," she said distantly. "You always say to let him come, you'll just cut him down like you did Hayder. It's a kind thought, but it's only because you don't know any better."

"Is this going to turn into another scolding about not sticking my neck out for people?"

Isabela looked down at her hands. "There's two kinds of people in this world, Hawke. People who get what they deserve, and people with the strength or guile to take what they don't. Both always run out of luck eventually. Not even you can change that."

She was running something through her fingers, a long folded band of crimson fabric that Hawke was pretty sure she hadn't had a moment before. It took Hawke a moment to recognize it, as the scarf she'd taken from her armor and wrapped around Isabela's arm as a makeshift bandage a full two years ago. Isabela had never returned it, preferring to add it to her rotation of head scarves or occasionally even wear it on her bicep like a battle trophy.

Hawke shifted on the ropes, leaning back wearily. The strange perch she'd ended up in still wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't as bad with a little time to get accustomed to it. The light off the sea stung her eyes, and she let them rest on Isabela's silent profile.

"Isabela," she started quietly.

Gold eyes flickered toward her. Hawke didn't move, didn't speak, had no idea what she had intended to say. Isabela held her gaze, expression unreadable, eyes intent, for what felt like a very long time.

Eventually, she looked back out at the ocean with a sigh.

"This isn't real, is it," she said, soft and resigned. "None of it." And then, almost under her breath, "You wouldn't be here, if it were."

"No," agreed Hawke, looking away.

"And I suppose it would be a bad thing if I just said 'bugger it' and stayed here anyway."

"I couldn't blame you," said Hawke.

"No, you never do." With an elaborate, irritated shrug of her shoulders, Isabela sighed, and twisted around in the rigging. "Come on. If I have to lose my big sodding imaginary boat, again, I'm at least going to stick a knife in the kidneys of a demon while I'm at it."

The illusion was already faltering when they hit the deck, Hawke's boots clanking heavy on the wood as the weight of her armor returned to her, the silver arc of the horizon bleeding yellow-brown, the sun broken by a dark black smudge that looked suspiciously city-like. The crew was gone, but as Isabela's feet touched down, the cabin door opened, and a young man stepped out, blinking orange-brown eyes in the sudden light.

Hawke was no great judge of male beauty, but even she could tell he was gorgeous. A narrow, smooth-skinned face held Rivaini coloring and a soft blush of blond beard; a slender but sturdy frame supported graceful limbs, with just enough lanky runner's muscle for definition; a short thick crop of hair sat untamed but not quite unkempt over perfectly shell-shaped ears. Two gold rings pierced one lobe, but failed to outshine the man's brilliant, hopeful smile.

"Isabela, my lovely," he said, with an accent that sounded at least half Antivan, and half something else Hawke couldn't name. "It has been far too long, I --" He stopped short, his face falling, his voice _soul-rendingly_ heartbroken. "Isabela. You cannot be planning to leave me. Not again. I've only just found you."

"Demon," greeted Hawke wearily, hand reaching for her sword, when her eye caught on Isabela next to her. The pirate was _rigid_ , pale and wide-eyed and as shaken as Hawke had ever seen her. ".... Bela?"

"For this ugly oaf, Isabela? For this wretch who has twice now cost you the ship you deserve? Do you think she'll hesitate to try for a third? And yet I, who took nothing. I, who gave _everything_. I, you will abandon --"

His voice broke, and Hawke herself had to beat back an irrational surge of sympathy. "You shut up," she growled, sliding between the demon and Isabela, taller and broader and armored enough to screen her vision. "Bela, it's a demon, you know it's a demon. It's not who it's pretending to be, it's never given you jack shit. It would say anything to keep you trapped here."

"I know, Hawke, I know, I just --"

Hawke felt a hand clench around the armor straps that crossed against her back.

"I can't, Hawke. I just can't. Not-- I can't do it."

"That's fine," said Hawke, eyes cold on the demon. "I can."

Her blade whistled through the air, one clean sweep cleaving from shoulder to hip. Desire demons never were very good at the actual fighting.

The last remnants of the illusory ship and its phantom sea dissipated around them, and Hawke felt Isabela lean against her back, forehead on the cool metal of her armor, and found the strength to hold herself upright a little longer.

Eventually, she shook her head. "Andraste's ass. The next time the Grand Cleric asks me a favor, remind me to say _no_."

Isabela laughed against her shoulderblades. "Poor baby. Hard afternoon of daydreaming?"

And if her voice was a little wet, Hawke chose not to notice.

"All in a day's work for the mighty Hawke," she said instead. "But I do think I'm going to demand hazard pay."

"Everyone knows you never fall for these things. Who's going to believe you deserve it?"

Hawke let out a long, slow breath, and let herself lean on the hilt of her sword. "I got lucky, Bela," she admitted quietly. "Demons, Fade spirits -- they don't understand time. Not the way we do. They don't know the difference between changing the present and fixing the past. They don't --"

She fell silent. Isabela's weight turned slowly insubstantial against her back, and then she was gone.

Hawke looked up at the Black City, a distant shadow in the sky. Her voice wasn't even a whisper, was barely breath at all. "A demon doesn't know what it means to need atonement."

She closed her eyes, and let herself finally wake up.


End file.
